I “found” this Psalm a few weeks back, but what I saw in it keeps sticking with me. It’s something we all know in our head, but we so often let guilt and accusation keep us from truly realizing.
What I’m talking about, specifically, is consequences. We all know that sin has consequences, and that the wages of sin is death. We all know that we will reap what we sow.
We also all know that God is a God of grace and mercy…yet so often we think and act as though that grace and mercy has limits…that the twentieth time we fail and commit the same sin, God might want to make us wait longer to receive His mercy than He did when we’d only sinned the first time…or that we know we didn’t really try at all, so our repentance now doesn’t count. I trust I’m not the only one who’s been there?
Psalm 107 is titled in my Bible, “The Lord Delivers Men from Manifold Troubles.”
It tells how God delivers the hungry and thirsty and weak. It tells how He saves those who are lost in darkness. It tells how He saves those lost in storms, how He causes springs to come forth in the dessert to give life to those who are thirsty, and how He sets the oppressed high above their oppressors.
But right in the middle of it all are these verses:
“Fools, because of their rebellious way,
And because of their iniquities, were afflicted.”
Do you see what jumped out at me? Is it nudging you?
Here we have ourselves, being fools. Rebelling. Not trying and failing, but rebelling!
And what do these fools do?
“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble;”
And when they did, what did God do? Did He do any of the things that the devil tries to make us think He will do? Nope.
“He saved them out of their distresses.
He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions.”
I love that. Not only did He save them, He healed them.
He heals us!
Even when the pain and distress that our mind and heart and body are suffering from is a direct result of our own rebellion!
That is incredible! No wonder the Psalmist goes on to declare:
“Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness,
And for His wonders to the sons of men!
Let them also offer sacrifices of thanksgiving,
And tell of His words with joyful singing!”
I will give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness!